Pre-Alpha: Games/Fun Ideas??

[myste12]

Hi everyone, I'm assisting with a Pre-Alpha class this summer. The kids can do most of the skills already (halfway through the session) including marching, forward and backward swizzles, two foot glides, and dips. They all need to work on one foot glides. Most of the kids are on the older end of the age category, mostly 9-11.

I'd love to hear if anyone knows of any games or fun skills that would be appropriate for a Pre Alpha class with older kids!

[jskater49]

It's sounds okay and young but I found older kids liked to do "Follow the Leader" where one kid decides what skill they would do. It's actually surprising how older kids will enjoy younger games - there's red light green light, but then if they needed to work on more than just stopping I would do "Purple light"= one foot glides "Magenta light" = another skill. The more ridiculis the colors and the more you change on them the more they enjoy it.


j

[CanadianAdult]

I'll draw big swervy lines on the ice with red and black markers. They have to skate on the lines, when they hit a red line or black line (depends on my mood that day) they have to pick up their foot and try to glide on it. The kids will make a point to try to skate on all the lines. We call that game Snakes.

Kids that can't glide well get rewarded for being able to stop well, or having a good push or keeping their head up. Although the skill is glide, there's lots of other stuff going on.

I've also done the red light, green light, blue light (heh Kmart), white light game, we call it rainbow light.

[SynchroSk8r114]

Like the previous poster suggested, Red Light, Green Light works great. Kids love playing and taking turns calling out the colors, but that usually only works for a smaller class. In my classes, we also have colored lights that have different meanings. For example, red light means stop, green light means go, yellow light is slow down, purple light is spin in place, blue loght is hop, orange light means quack like a duck, and gold light means skate as fast as you can.

I've also found that for beginner Pre-Alpha's who aren't that strong yet enjoy following a "magic path" on the ice. Draw one with your marker and create little mountains that kids must go around, water for them to hop over, rocks or animals for them to swizzle around, broken bridges for one-foot glides, etc. Try and be creative.

Most kids, regardless of age or ability, like to do a contest-type game. Think longest one-fot glide, fastest swizzlers, longest/lowest teapot, etc. For higher-level skaters, they love most waltz jumps in a row, most loops in a row, fastest spinner, most revolutions in a certain spin, lowest/longest shoot-the-duck or lunge, highest spiral, longest-held spiral. Mix it up - almost any element can be turned into a contest.

Try add-on for those higher-level skaters, too! Spin add-on is more practical and a little easier, although you can also do jump add-on for more advanced freestylers. One skater starts out with a scratch spin, for example. The next skater would do the scratch-sit combination, the third player the scratch-sit-backspin. Game continues as long as skaters are able to complete the spin + whatever spin position they choose. This can get really challenging, but it keeps skaters practicing while having fun, so some may not even realize that they're working on such difficult spin combos. If you're going to do jumps, think very little/no steps in between. For instance, skater #1 does axel, skater #2 does axel-toeloop, skater #3 does axel-toeloop-double loop, or whatever. Game continues as long as skaters can keep the combo's rolling!

If you're class isn't too big/out of hand and your rink allows it, play the Blob. Either you or a child starts out as a blob; everyone must stay in a certain area (say, red line to red line or something). The blob's job is to get other skaters by tagging them. Once tagged, that skater becomes part of the blob. Skaters can make teams of 2, 4, 6 - even numbers/teams only - but cannot be a team of 3, 5, or 7. These blobs are now responsible for getting other skaters. So, you can technically have 3 or 4 blobs going on at once. Once all the skaters have become part of a blob, the final skater remaining wins! This game is really fun for kids of all ages/levels; it promotes team work and quick skating, but you must also be careful because some kids can get really aggressive in trying to get others and some of the less strong skaters can lose easily (becoming frustrated) or get hurt along the way, so I'd def. recommend for older children.

Finally, try playing Octopus. It's similar to the Blob, but a little safer, IMO. Kids between 6-10 really like this one! You start out with one child (or yourself) in the middle of the ice - that person is the octopus and uses his or her arms to get other skaters. (The octopus can only move side to side, not forward or backward.) Once the octopus tags someone, that person stands along side the original octopus and helps get other skaters. The more skaters that are tagged, the bigger the octopus gets. Again, the last skater not part of the octopus wins!

Hope these help you out a bit! :D

[Skittl1321]

In a small class we like to do London Bridge for dips- the kids love getting "caught" under the bridge.

For little two foot jumps we do Monkey's Jumping On a Bed The kids all know the song and LOVE doing the jump. If the kids aren't stable enough to jump we just introduce it as bending the knees rising up and bringing the arms in like a jump. (We usually jump in snowplow sam 2)

We play Bubble Gum Bubble Gum for anything backwards. They pick their number and then have to do that many backwards to blow up the bubble. Then we pop our bubble and skate back into the circle.

If you need words to any of these songs, PM me.
The kids LOVE Going to the Ocean (no song). We get into our airplane (bed down and lift one foot then the other into the cockpit) then fly to the "ocean" (the blue near they hockey goals). Then we put on all our scuba gear and go swimming (dip in place) if someone sees a shark we have to swizzle backwards to get out of the ocean, then we can skate forward when it's safe. But there are ALWAYS sharks in our ocean. Very dangerous.

In small snowplow classes (2 kids, so they don't feel bad if it's hard) we add a beanie. Start with 1 beanie baby and if everyone swizzles over we add another one and do more- snowplow 3 has gotten up to 18!

To practice stopping we play fox and hens the teacher is the fox and skates inside the hockey circle on 2 paths. The class goes around the circle and if they get caught by the fox they become foxes too. The fox can only catch them in the path (a 't' in line with the center) so they have to stop at each intersection

I teach mostly 5-6 year olds, but have found that the older kids really like the little games too.

[myste12]

Thanks for the great ideas everyone! I'll definitely be trying some of these in my classes this week.